Hideaway
by Xakinera
Summary: XANA has taken control. The group was dispersing. There was only one rule: To kill or be killed. Regular pairings, no mains yet but most likely UxY. Can't promise fast updates with school and everything. Still worth a read. Title may change.
1. Birthday Wishes

**Hello, everyone. I planned on my first Code Lyoko fic to be a Sissie centric oneshot but this one came pouring out instead. Hope you like it. **

Chapter 1 Birthday Wishes

It was a cold cruel world. XANA…was everywhere. They were through with Kadic, through with laws, morals. It was either kill or be killed.

They hadn't been to the supercomputer for months, not since Jerome had tried – and failed to reboot it with a new program he had created. It was now shackled down to keep unwanted trespassers from wandering in, the main entrance boarded up with wooden planks left over from a few furniture pieces they had scrounged from the Hermitage. On top of that were most of the books and a few artifacts Aelita thought would hold sentimental value before it too was evacuated.

Needless to say, the future was not bright.

Ulrich was, if possible, grimmer than before. He and Yumi had been so close to reaching the next stage in what both had hoped would be their relationship and were now reduced to mere acquaintances, or so it seemed. Distance had been creeping up on Aelita and Jerome as well, causing their late night conversations only to consist of plans on how to stop XANA, all of which were futile. Even Odd had grown quiet, no longer the witty wisecracker that he was, but succumbed to days staring at the sky, his hair left untended and flopping to the ground.

None of them were sure how it happened. It came out of the blue. Everything had been fine one day, and simply not the next. No one had expected XANA to have gained such an uncanny control over the Earth. No one could have guessed how grand were his plans. No one could have pictured the devastation of France. Not even Jerome could have proclaimed he had any inkling of what was to come that far away day…  
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Two silhouettes fell on the trio in the park. Jerome forced himself to rise from his computer and motioned to the others. "What did you find, Yumi?"

Ulrich dropped a sack full of provisions on the ground while Yumi answered, "Some bread, a few cans of soda – sorry, Aelita, that's all we could find – and a couple of jars of god knows what."

"And that's not all," Ulrich said, rummaging in the bag. "Here." He tossed a slightly misshapen package to Jerome, who fumbled with it for a few seconds and finally caught it with stiff fingers.

"What's this?" he asked suspiciously, turning it over in his hands, studying the seams.

Ulrich offered him a lopsided grin. Unusual, to say the least. "Open it."

"Happy birthday," Yumi added, smiling slightly. She took the sack from Ulrich, found a crackly croissant and bit into it rather savagely before handing another to Aelita.

Jerome stared at the box in wonder, then opened it slowly, hesitantly. Sure enough, it was a decent-sized angel's food birthday cake. "Thanks," he said awkwardly, before placing it on the ground and turning away, almost as if to examine the setting sun. He had completely forgotten his birthday. Over the past few months, it was as if they had simultaneously reached a tacit agreement that they wouldn't bother with such trivial things anymore. He smiled through the tears pricking at his eyes. This showed that they were still friends after all.

"Hey, Odd!" he called, his voice sounding loud in the desolate park. "Do you want any cake?"

Odd glanced his way and nodded. "Okay," he said simply, striding over. Aelita searched and dug up a plastic knife from one of the backpacks and Jerome sliced the birthday cake into equal pieces with trembling fingers. As Odd was about to lift one into his waiting mouth – after all, some things never change – Aelita put a hand over his.

"Make a wish, Jerome," she said.

Jerome looked up at her. "What?"

"You know…a wish."

It had never occurred that there was still something in this world as beautiful as a wish. But Aelita was looking so hopeful, that he almost smiled. He closed his eyes, but quickly opened them again. What could he wish for? Then he realized he answer was staring him in the face. He looked up at each of his friends in turn. He thought of all of their family that XANA had killed. He thought of how many others he could be channeling right this moment and he wished. _I wish this place could be safe again._

**So, do you think it's worth continuing?**


	2. Attack

**ShadowGirdo: You've no idea how happy I was when I read your review! Yay!! Thank you soooo much. You have motivated me to start right now, less than an hour after I posted the story! XD When it'll be finished is quite a different story…**

**KnightofFaerum: And I read _your_ review from my email during lunch just before that mean lady said I had to get off because I wasn't doing homework and therefore shouldn't be using a computer! I really don't like her… Thanks for the review at any rate, and yep, I'm building on that. Kind of. Well, I'm getting there.**

In their first few weeks, they remained at Kadic, hidden away carefully among its familiar walls, wondering how their families were. But later, cracks started emerging, causing Aelita and Jeremy to worry. They retreated to the factory before the first month was over. When Ulrich went to observe the school building, he was forced to report that it had crumbled.

Though both Jeremy and Aelita had explanations for this, including quite a few big words and everything being considered at subatomic levels, none of the others grasped what they said and eventually gave up and settled on not knowing. Soon afterwards, it hit them that everything really was going to be different. And more drastically so than any of them could have imagined.

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Yumi and Ulrich were out again. Yumi and Ulrich. It sounded like some sort of stand up comedy act. But it wasn't. There was nothing funny about breaking into your own house. Armed with steel-like courage and a few kitchen knives scraped from various vacant dwellings in an apartment complex nearby, they stopped at the front steps, their faces unreadable masks. It had been like this for a while. Two of them, usually Ulrich and Yumi, would venture out into the barren streets, while another would stay behind with Aelita and Jerome.

Popping the glass from the window frame and laying it carefully on the ground, Ulrich stepped over the ledge and poked his head in cautiously. He cocked his head to the side, listening for any unusual sounds, turned to Yumi, gave her one brisk nod, and proceeded to fully enter.

Yumi followed suit, stiff as a floorboard as she turned her gaze on the living room. Memories of her brother playing his video games plagued her. Times when her father sat on the tabaret couch, watching the news prodded at her mind. If she glanced at the shelf or the oaken panel, she would see her phantom mother dusting the little trinkets the family had collected over the years. That was when 7 Hawthorne Way had been a home. Now it was just a house.

"Jeremy said they might be keeping some files here," Ulrich said. "So basically we just grab anything that looks high-tech – or out of place."

Yumi only nodded. "Simple enough."

The lights weren't on and the place smelled musty, as if no air had been exchanged for a while, which was most likely the case. But there was also some type of decay. Both of them knew what it was and where it was coming from, but neither acknowledged it. Everything was covered with a layer of dust, so both had to refrain from breathing more often than absolutely necessary.

"Are they in here?" Yumi asked in a low voice, grabbing onto the hilt of her knife.

"I don't think so," Ulrich replied, scarcely more than a whisper. He proceeded to open the kitchen cupboards, checking it for anything suspicious. There was no edible food, no electronics in use, and no creature comforts. A robot's house. He dug up a few measly batteries from underneath a molding bag of bread. He pocketed them anyway. Yumi reached the sitting room, looking over the china cabinet, sweeping eyes like secrecy sensors across the room, averting them when they fell on the door leading to her father's study. After a good deal of searching, she unearthed a few unmarked CD ROMs but nothing more. She saw Ulrich coming out of the kitchen with a few odd-looking objects. He held them out and she recognized a couple of floppy disks and a file with strange numerical codes, none of which had been there when she lived in the house. She nodded as if to confirm they didn't belong and both began up the stairs.

It was then that a shadow flickered from across the hall, and at the same time something from the opposite direction hurled itself at Yumi, who flew to the ground, her head making impact on the wooden floorboards. The CD ROMs in her hands fell with a clatter. She blinked at the white-hot pain of her skull, furiously trying to get at her knife, when a small fist assailed her jaw. Hiroki.

She growled, prying at his fingers, which clung to her abdomen, abnormally strong, and smacked him upside the head. She rolled off from under him, pulling out her knife. He hissed and pounced once again at her middle, but this time she was prepared and swayed backwards ever so slightly, slashing at his arm, but because she momentarily lost balance, the mark was a mere graze off of his skin, instead of being near fatal as she had intended.

Ulrich had turned around at the disappearance of his partner, and lost no time in tackling the larger figure a few feet away in the torso. Although he had quite a good amount of strength, he was, essentially, only fifteen, and bounced off of XANA's vessel harmlessly.

He sank groggily to the ground, fumbling with his knife. He raised it just as the woman towered over him, hair in disarray, and prepared to land a foot on his ribcage, which ought to effectively crack several of his ribs. He stabbed blindly and felt his blade meet raw flesh, hearing her stumble, knowing he had found his mark. He stood up, made his way over to Yumi, and hit Hiroki's head with the hilt of his knife. He wasn't ready to kill again. Not yet.

Yumi rose, her eyes flickering from her brother to her mother, debating whether she could kill him before the elder would recover. The answer, so discovered as the woman stood and gave her a death glare, gathering a bolt of electricity, she took was no. She picked up a large ornamental vase and threw it at her, hoping to delay her a while. Meanwhile, Hiroki was recuperating and Ulrich aimed him a kick with one steel-toed boot with carefully masked disgust. Grabbing most everything they'd dropped during the assail, he ran, not looking back to see if Yumi followed or not.

A bit longer, I think. I'm not very good with action so this may not have been the best. Review anyway. Thanks. 


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